Newsletter 11th September 2018

Hey hey, it’s Tuesday and that means newsletter time. This time I’m following up with last week’s concept and adding a section about my personal life regarding what kind of content I’ve been consuming in the past week. As always, all feedback is welcome!

Articles

Ikea wants to 3D print your butt: The Swedish furniture giant Ikea has partnered with Area Academy and Unyq to bring gamer bottoms custom 3D printed chairs. Since most of us play sitting down, it’s a good idea to invest in a quality chair. It’s interesting to see whether Ikea is planning to do more for gamers. Hopefully we will see something else before 2020, when these chairs are supposed to be on the market.

Is It Game Over For Electronic Arts?: EA has seen the company stock price fall almost 25% in a couple of months. Gamer community loves to hate EA, but from investor perspective it’s been a good company in the recent years. Seeking Alpha analyst Cohan Chew offers insights on why the company suddenly seems to be in a downward spiral and why it isn’t the end.

Blog

Past week I’ve been focusing on setting up the compliance for the services I use to monetise the blog. This includes setting up SLL (as you can see, the site uses https instead of http now) and writing a privacy policy. The blog got accepted to Google AdSense program and the first affiliate marketing links are up. The businessman in me is looking forward to playing with these now toys!

I also decided to ditch WordPress default commenting tools in favour of Facebook comments. I imagine commenting via Facebook has a lower barrier of entry than registering a WordPress account. Plus when people comment with their own identities instead of a nickname, the comments are more likely stay on topic. This means less moderation work.

Now that I’ve gotten used to writing again, I’m looking to expand the blog’s presence to social media. To make this a bit easier I’m researching who to follow and automating some of the basic tasks, such as informing about new blog posts. I chose Zapier as my automation tool, because it seems easy to use.

Everyone stresses the importance of search engine optimisation. That’s why I decided to start using Yoast SEO plugin to help me better structure my posts for SEO. Additionally I’m looking into some courses on the topic. I started with a free course from Daragh Walsh on Udemy, and that’s a good, concise overview. While doing keyword research on Google, I also noted that is a good way to ideate on topics to write about.

Gamer life

In this new section I talk about what kind of entertainment I’m currently consuming.

Games

Last week I’ve been all over Destiny 2, since it is a PS Plus free game this month. Even though I’m not a huge fan of FPS games, I have to say it’s very nice for a change. It has a good storyline and interesting content, which I’ve found to be lacking from many FPS games.

Seems like I’m having some kind of space exploration phase going on, as I’ve also spent time on No Man’s Sky. I’ve only put in like 6 hours in total, but it’s a relaxing experience so far, and I like to have those every once in a while. There are also rumours of upcoming VR support for the game. As a PS VR owner, I’m really pumped about that possibility. I think the game would look amazing in VR.

Movies and series

For the people who don’t know me, I have a huge backlog of stuff I would some time want to watch on Netflix. The most recent additions are the original Blade Runner from 1982, last year’s Justice League movie and the new season of Marvel’s Iron Fist.

We recently binge-watched Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, which I recommend. It’s a sci-fi series with a lot of humour. It is based on a novel by Douglas Adams. Another series we finished was Disenchantment from the creators of The Simpsons. The series has some of the same elements as The Simpsons, but is set in this fairy tale kingdom of Dreamland.

Books

I’m currently reading the Forgotten Realms (the world of Dungeons & Dragons) books by R. A. Salvatore. More specifically the Dark Elf trilogy, which tells the beginning of the story of Drizzt Do’Urden from the moment he was born in the drow city of Menzoberranzan. The books are easy to read and rather enjoyable. They progress fast, so even more impatient readers will be able to enjoy them. There are so many books in the series it might be hard to know where to start. That’s why the author made a suggested reading order I’m following.

For me these books also complement the experience I’m having in the Neverwinter game, filling in details about the world and the characters’ backstories. I know some other games, like World of Warcraft, have done the same as well.

That’s it for the newsletter! Hope you were able to find some value of it. Don’t forget to leave a comment if you did.